Texas history rife with voter discrimination

Updated 7:20 pm, Sunday, October 16, 2016

Photo: Billy Calzada /San Antonio Express-News

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Modesto Rodriguez, 71, who in 1975 testified in favor of the Voting Rights Act applying to Texas, sits at home in Pearsall in 2013. Rodriguez, former chairman of the Frio County Raza Unida Party, was beaten in Pearsall shortly after after testifying, allegedly for his stance.Even with the Act, voter discrimination has persisted in Texas. less

Modesto Rodriguez, 71, who in 1975 testified in favor of the Voting Rights Act applying to Texas, sits at home in Pearsall in 2013. Rodriguez, former chairman of the Frio County Raza Unida Party, was beaten in ... more

Photo: Billy Calzada /San Antonio Express-News

Texas history rife with voter discrimination

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Al Kauffman, professor at St. Mary’s University School of Law, has done many a public service in his illustrious career, including arguing cases in which he thwarted erosion of precious rights. Add one more service.

I commend for your reading pleasure — displeasure when you grasp the enormity of what Texas has done through the years — an op-ed he wrote for these pages a Sunday ago (“Halt Texas’ pattern of voter discrimination,” Opinion, Oct. 9).

And while you’re at it, read Robert Brischetto’s history of gerrymandering (“Democracy distorted by gerrymandering,” Opinion, Oct. 2).

There is a tendency, when history reveals heinous acts, for folks to shrug and say, “That was then, this is now.” We’ve evolved, in other words.

But what Kauffman did was draw a bright line from early 20th-century efforts to keep minority voters from the polls to present-day efforts to do the same. He demonstrated that suppressing the vote isn’t only history, it is an ongoing current event.

Here’s the pattern: “Texas implements discriminatory policies, suffers their overruling in court, complains about court and national overreach, and then designs new ingenious ways to reinstitute the discriminatory policies.”

Given unlimited space to write, Kauffman could have started earlier when it comes to Texas at war with its own citizens of color, but he started in 1927. That was when the U.S. Supreme Court said it was unconstitutional to deny African-Americans a right to vote in the Democratic primary. Democrats were then the party in power — and such shenanigans are always about preserving power.

After that 1927 ruling, Texas passed a law allowing the political parties to choose who gets to vote in their primaries. Guess who was denied? Right, African-Americans.

Five years later, the high court ruled that unconstitutional. Texas then allowed parties to choose their own members — African-Americans again excluded. It took a 1944 ruling to put an end to the nonsense.

Texas’ history also includes this:

The states were asked to ratify the 24th Amendment, which repealed the poll tax in federal elections. Poll taxes disproportionately disenfranchised poor blacks and Mexican-Americans.

In their ratification vote in 1963, Texans rejected a repeal of the poll tax, 56 percent to 43 percent.

This, no matter how old I am, is not ancient history. And the irony was that many poor blacks and Mexican-Americans were unable to vote on their ability to vote in federal elections.

The 24th Amendment came to be anyway in 1964 because enough states ratified the measure. Wonder of wonders, the poll tax could still be applied in Texas state and local elections — until the Supreme Court banned the poll tax altogether in 1966.

To say Texas is dragged kicking and screaming into progress is not at all understatement.

And, as Kauffman wrote, the pattern persists. Texas’ voter ID law has been rejected three times. And this last time, folks who challenged the law had to go back to court because it appeared the state was not doing its part to educate voters that they don’t need photo IDs to vote.

Texas leaders persist in their insistence that the voter ID law is about in-person voter fraud, which is virtually nonexistent. Federal overreach? No, voter discrimination is about state overreach to preserve a party’s continuing dominance, changing demographics be damned.

Kauffman advocates restoration — legislatively or by the courts — of federal preclearance. Certain states, because of past discriminatory practices, had to get changes to voting law approved by the federal government. Texas was among them. Preclearance had been a part of the Voting Rights Act’s Section 5 but was weakened by the Supreme Court.

Yes, restoring preclearance would indeed be a move forward.

Another, however, starts with grasping how Texas elected officials have advocated discrimination. When you go to the polls for this extremely important election, remember that not everyone wanted to allow this. And then act accordingly.